Frederick County Delegate’s Three Bills Passed As The Legislature Nears Adjournment

A few didn’t make it.

 

Annapolis, Md (KM) With days to go before the Maryland General Assembly adjourns for the year, Frederick County Delegate Karen Lewis Young has reason to be happy. Three of her bills have passed both houses of the legislature, and are heading to the Governor for his signature.

The bills would prohibit minors from using tanning beds, update the patient bill of rights in Maryland, and expand the scope of service of optometrists. “They were all very heavy lifts. So I’m very pleased. In each case. This is not the fist time,” she says. “The prohibition of tanning {beds} for minors was a bill in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015. So after five tries, it finally passed.”

It also wasn’t;t easy to update the patient bill of rights. “The patient bill of rights in Maryland has not been updated since 1978,” says Young. “And this is our fourth year at this particular bill.”

She says she believes the Governor will sign these bills, in particular the legislation prohibiting minors from using tanning bed. “Given the Governor’s support last year of my bill to allow children to bring sunblock to school, and his own experience with cancer, I’ve  got to believe he would support this bill,” says Young.

The measure to prohibit minors from using tanning beds has the support of the American Cancer Society and the Maryland Dermatological Society. The World Health Organization has classified the UV ray  as much of a carcinogen in the same category as tobacco, and the cost of treating skin cancer is about $340-million annually.

But Young says a few of her bills are not going to make it because the General Assembly is set to adjourn very soon. She says one bill would allow pharmacists to do injections for patients.   “That was a bill that I thought was going move. But Med-Chi resisted. And when we worked out some of the differences, they came back with some new objections. So I’m afraid that’s going to have to wait until next year,” she says.

“Diabetes would have been one of the injections that would be covered,” says Young. “Because there are some people, who for some reason or another, can’t or are not comfortable doing their own injections. So it would have permitted pharmacists, assuming they had the appropriate training, to be able to delivers those injections.”

The Maryland General Assembly adjourns for the year on Monday, April 8th at midnight.

 

By Kevin McManus